Hidden Kiwi Gems: Children of the Dog Star

Children of the Dog Star is a most unusual and obscure shard of Kiwi TV. The sci-fi mini-series premiered in 1984 featuring six episodes total and features a child trio as its main cast uncovering an unnatural phenomenon occurring in their local town.

I remember commercials presenting a DVD release of the series, which I learnt was a long time coming since it hadn’t been aired or released fully in the time after its premiere.

For a crack at alien sci-fi, Children of the Dog Star is a strange specimen indeed.

A young girl by the name of Gretchen is on holiday at her uncles farm, and shows a particular knack for engineering and all things technical and mechanical alike. She befriends a local Maori boy named Ronny, and Bevis, a budding young ornithologist with a mother intent on clearing away a local swamp for construction. Ronny’s father (whom an older crowd will know as Zac Wallace of “Utu” fame) however, protects the swamp for it is tapu, that being cursed or taboo land not to be disturbed.

Over the course of the series, the three children explore the swamp to uncover strange pieces of an artifact not of this world, and uncover a means of alien contact.

I had slightly above average expectations for what I was getting into, and I couldn’t help but anticipate a coming of age sci-fi mystery not unlike other Kiwi classics like “Under the Mountain”.

Unfortunately, there remains a mini-series that, while filled with intrigue and potential appeal, falls flat in building any kind of memorable storytelling or emotional impact to take away from it. This may contribute to its obscure history and nature, leaving itself quickly forgotten even when it first aired and resulting in near unattainability until 2009 when it finally returned in DVD form.

The eventual unfolding of the plot is not what I was initially anticipating and what plot does remain moves exceptionally slowly to move to what I can’t help but feel is a rather anticlimactic and counterproductive ending.

The entire ensemble of characters, while certainly realistic, are two-dimensional at best save perhaps for Ronny’s father and Bevis’s mother. Speaking of which, the three child actors, while they seem to do their best, are left in the dark with an on-the-nose script and perhaps lack of direction or motivation due to a plot lacking in stakes. They do however work particularly well with one another creating some natural chemistry that carries the scene on occasion.

In my time of learning writing, I picked up the importance of three factors contributing to a great plot. That being Goals, Stakes and Urgency.

Goals establish the direct sequence of events of what needs to be done, and how the characters go about doing it.

Stakes focus on why we are doing this, and why we are saving the day. More importantly, Stakes establish what happens if our heroes fail. What are the consequences of failure, if we don’t accomplish our mission?

Urgency, obviously, is our time limit. Urgency ensures that we can’t be having this adventure forever, the goal must be reached before the time to do so passes, which may result in worse consequences.

Children of the Dog Star appears to fail in two of these categories and suffers in one.

As I’ve said before, the Goals our child heroes follow are a tad boring and don’t present much in the way of obstacles, and each episode seems to drag with not much excitement and nowhere near enough conflict to save it.

Secondly, Stakes appear to be severely lacking. The only thing driving the kids to uncover the pieces of the artifact, which turns out to be an alien scout probe, is both curiosity (perpetuated really only by Gretchen and refuted by Ronny which remains the only conflict of interest) and a weak possibility of the swamp being excavated. Both I feel are not strong enough to fuel the narrative and there are no downsides from not doing anything at all, and no plausible reason to keep going forward aside from the probe communicating with Gretchen to help it.

So when characters have no personal stakes in the story and have nothing to lose or gain no matter how the story plays out, and when they hardly change throughout the course of the story, the entire plot and the medium becomes nothing but mild, meaningless white noise that doesn’t lure viewers in to learn more.

And finally there is neither Urgency nor haste to encourage the three to get a move on, or if there is, the screenplay takes its sweet time getting there. I feel like so much more information and expansion on characters, settings and the lore could have been added and explored across the series. More questions than answers are left behind and certainly not the good thought-provoking kind.

As a result, it all feels quite empty and quiet with not much of substance to remember it by. Not to mention the ending ultimately proves these points exactly and leads us right back to where we were from the very beginning with no significant change or revelation to make it feel as if the adventure was worth it. Even certain loose ends with other characters and places I feel weren’t tied up properly if even tied up at all.

All in all, Children of the Dog Star has possibly been forgotten for one too many reasons than it deserves, since there still seemed to be thought and care put into it, if not always in the right places. If you truly wish to give it a watch, it can still stand fairly well on its premise and it’s readily available on Youtube.

But much like the tapu placed upon the swamp hiding the pieces of the strange alien artifact, some things are better left untouched and undisturbed.

Thank you for reading and have a beautiful day!

• Daniel